The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.1 Google Walkout Scandal, How Logan Paul "Lost" $5 Million, & University of Maryland Firing

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Thursday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. And before we jump into it, actually a quick note. This morning, even though we didn't plan for it at the beginning of the week, we uploaded an extra bonus news video to this channel. It's a topic that I believe should be getting more and more coverage, I think it also will. We also did something a little bit different, but main point, after today's show, click it in the top links down below. And with that said, let's just jump into it.

And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is Google is in the news for news they'd probably rather not be in the news for. So today there's a scheduled walkout for Google employees that started at 11.10 a.m. local time for any Google offices worldwide. And according to a Twitter account called Google Walkout, employees are seeking five meaningful changes. One, an end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination

for all current and future employees. Two, a commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity. Three, a publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report. Four, a clear uniform globally inclusive process reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously. And five, elevate the chief diversity officer to answer directly to the CEO and make recommendations directly to the board of directors. And with this, appoint an employee rep to the board. And many offices across the world are reportedly participating.

You have Singapore, Dublin, New York City, Austin, London, Zurich, Tokyo. And we've also seen Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying in an email that he actually supported the protest. Reportedly saying, earlier this week we let Googlers know that we are aware of the activities planned for today and that employees will have the support they need if they wish to participate.

Adding, employees have raised constructive ideas for how we can improve our policies and our processes going forward. We are taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action. However, this show of support seems to mean very little to many employees who want to actually see things change instead of a PR response. And as far as why is this walkout happening, it was actually organized after a New York Times report came out detailing the ways that Google has protected executives that are accused of misconduct.

And organizers of the Google walkout said in a statement, "'We were disgusted by the details "'of the recent New York Times article "'which provided the latest example "'of a culture of complicity, dismissiveness, "'and support for perpetrators "'in the face of sexual harassment, "'misconduct, and abuse of power.'" And adding, "'Sadly, this is a part "'of a long-standing problem, "'one further amplified by systemic racism.

"'We know this culture well.'" And so that brings us to the question of, well, what was actually in that report? And in it, there were actually multiple examples. You have examples like David C. Drummond. He began working as a general counsel for Google in 2002. He had an extramarital affair with Jennifer Blakely, who was a senior contract manager in the legal department.

They had a relationship that began in 2004. They had a son in 2007, after which Drummond disclosed the relationship to Google. And according to Blakely, one of us would have to leave the legal department, and that being it was clear it would not be David. She was then transferred to the sales department. She left the company a year later

after reportedly signing a document that she was departing voluntarily. But Blakely also saying that the way Drummond was treated, it amplifies the message that for a select few there are no consequences. Adding, Google felt like I was the liability. There was also an incident in 2013 when Richard Duvall, a director at Google X, interviewed Star Simpson, a hardware engineer. Reportedly during the interview, Duvall told Simpson that he and his wife were polyamorous and then he invited her to Burning Man. So not your typical interview, but because Simpson said she was interested in discussing the position more, she ended up going, but she also took her mother and she dressed conservatively. But then reportedly still at the festival, Duvall asked her to remove her top so he could give her a back rub. When she refused, he insisted and then ultimately she relented into letting him rub her neck. And Simpson telling the New York Times,

I didn't have enough spine or backbone to shut that down as a 24 year Old and a few weeks later. She was told that she didn't get the job She then waited two years to report it to Google when she did according to an HR employee Appropriate action was taken also saying that she was asked to stay quiet about the incident Deval ended up apologizing for what he called An error of judgment also adding that the company had already decided not to hire Simpson before the festival and he was unaware that she had Not been informed yet Ultimately what we saw was Deval resigning there was also an employee who alleged that Amit Singhal, a senior vice president who headed search, had groped her at an offsite event where alcohol was served.

And after an investigation, the company said that Singhal was inebriated and there were no witnesses, but they found her claim credible. And ultimately they didn't fire him, but they did accept his resignation and gave him an exit package. But the big standout story out of all of these

that most people have been talking about is with Andy Rubin. He's the creator of the Android mobile software and there was a woman in his division at Google that he began an extramarital relationship with. Reportedly the two started the relationship in 2012 and by 2013 she wanted to end it but she feared for her job if she did. In March of 2013 the woman reportedly agreed to meet Rubin in a hotel room where he pressured her into performing oral sex, an incident that she said ended their relationship. The woman waited until 2014 to report the incident but an investigation that was performed by the company concluded that her allegations were credible.

And according to two unnamed company executives, Rubin was notified of the findings and was then asked for his resignation. And so instead of firing him in 2014, Google CEO at the time, Larry Page, asked for Rubin to resign, and then the company gave him a $90 million exit package. And reportedly, that was set up to be paid out in monthly installments over the course of four years, and the final payment should actually be this month.

Now on the other side of this, Rubin does maintain that he left Google on his own accord and his spokesperson said that he has actually never been told of these accusations. And according to a statement from Rubin, specifically, I never coerced a woman to have sex in a hotel room, adding, These false allegations are part of a smear campaign by my ex-wife to disparage me during a divorce and custody battle. And actually on that note, his ex-wife, Rye Rubye Rubin who he met at Google is alleged that he had multiple ownership relationships with other women while they were married. And in the New York Times report they say according to four people who worked with him he dated other women at Google including one woman who was on the Android team. And regarding the ownership relationship thing, screenshots that were released from their civil suit showed Rubin telling one woman,

you will be happy being taken care of, being owned is kind of like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people. Also, we saw some really interesting information come out after the New York Times piece was released. You had Google's CEO and Google's vice president for people operations saying in an email to staff that Google had fired 48 people, including 13 senior managers, for sexual harassment over the last two years, and that none of them received an exit package. And saying, We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct. We investigate and we take action. And saying, We've also seen some former executives say they weigh out the possible negative outcomes of firing executives more so than when considering to fire a low-level employee.

This because executives will often have stocks, so their stock compensation and how much they will leave behind is often considered. And that's along with the possibility that there's wrongful termination lawsuit if they're fired, which could also lead to unwanted media attention for Google. We also saw Larry Page, the former CEO of decisions that affect people every day, some of them not easy. And you know, I think certainly there's ones with the benefit of hindsight I would have made differently. I know this is really an exceptionally painful story for some of you and I'm really sorry for that. However, for many this wasn't enough. Especially when Google is currently facing lawsuits alleging that they are underpaying women. There's even a Department of Labor investigation into this alleged pay gap. And this feeling was summed up in a question displayed during the weekly staff meeting at Google after the report came out reading Multiple company actions strongly indicate that protection of powerful abusers is literally and figuratively more valuable to the company than the well-being of their victims What concrete and meaningful actions will be taken to turn this around?

We also saw Liz Fong Jones a Google engineer say when Google covers up harassment and passes the trash it contributes to an environment Where people don't feel safe reporting misconduct They suspect that nothing will happen or worse that the men will be paid and the women will be pushed aside. You had Google Cloud employee, Jane Edogan, tweet out, If you're worth millions of dollars, you should be able to show the door to authoritarian governments and serial abusers. If not now, then when? And what she's likely referencing there are reports that Google has a prototype of a censored search platform for China that links phone numbers to searches.

And while the inclusion of that can kind of seem out of left field, I think it really shows that there are a lot of issues. It's not just one thing, and it seems like for a good number of people, it's just all stacking up. And I will say, as far as what happens from here, it will be very interesting, because looking at just all of these pictures from the walkout, seeing how many people are actually walking out,

you can tell how massive of a problem it is. But ultimately, the question at hand is, will this be effective? What happens tomorrow, the week after, the month after, a year after? What we're seeing today is a massive show of numbers, but based off of what we've seen from the CEO of Google, it seems that they're very much like, we're with you.

That was not okay with me in charge for the past two years, we've really cracked down on the situation. Right, seemingly separating his leadership with the actions of the past. Once again, when we look at the entirety of the situation, we look at all of the complaints and the demands, this is not just a one point issue. And ultimately we'll have to wait to see,

but with this story, of course, I pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around it? Does it sound like Google is trying to do the right thing? Or are you just taking that as PR? Any and all thoughts. And then let's talk about some industries specifically focused on YouTube slash entertainment news.

And this because specifically there's been talk about the money monetization. In a recent official blog, the CEO of YouTube addressed many things including article 13, which if you're not familiar, we did a whole video on it, link to that down below. But with what we're talking about today, the CEO of YouTube talked about monetization, writing, monetization is the heart of your business. To that end, we released an update to our monetization systems this quarter, which improved the accuracy of monetization icons by 10%. Then citing specific creators that have gone up 20% in revenue, 50% in revenue

and those upticks were attributed to the new channel memberships feature where underneath the video you can click join and essentially each month you pay that creator. I think it's all well and good that YouTube is trying to come up with different ways that aren't necessarily just tied to advertising where creators can make money but what I'm personally fascinated by is with this update that Susan mentioned, I'd be fascinated to know when exactly they put this change through because starting on October 5th, since October 5th, I've had 33 videos hit by YouTube. Some from the archive and some of the new stuff. But seemingly, at least for us, there was a huge update. And so I guess more of a question to fellow creators out there, have you seen a recent change with what happens with your videos on YouTube?

Either way, that's gonna be something we look into further, but also kind of connected to the YouTube money situation. You also had Logan Paul in the news because he did a sit down interview with Hollywood Reporter. And Logan Paul, of course, is at a very weird year. He started it off with the suicide forest controversy, went on this kind of apology and redemption tour, and then that kind of offshot into this whole fighting thing. But one of the several things that stood out

from the interview is he talked about how when he was removed from Google Preferred, that of course being Google's premium ad program, he estimates that he lost five million dollars because of all of this. Although according to the Hollywood Reporter he has been reinstated, which really wouldn't be a surprise since they also released his YouTube original movie. Also an interesting note regarding the money he says that he made between one to two million dollars from that KSI fight, although he reportedly said because of expenses he essentially just broke even. Also connected to that, I wonder on the overall picture if that's true. I mean, he sold a bunch of merchandise that was specifically fight merch. I wonder if he's including that, but either way that was interesting to me.

And I think just in general it was interesting to me because whenever you kind of see one of these controversies, there is the question of, well, how much was someone actually affected? And so now all this time after here we have a number as far as how accurate it is, who knows. If it is true, I think that is incredibly insightful as far as how beneficial the preferred program is. There was that, something I just personally found interesting. And then let's talk about the situation around Jordan McNair. And if that name sounds familiar to you, it's because this is actually an update to a massive story we covered back in August. But if you didn't see it, just to kind of bring you up to speed,

Jordan McNair was a 19-year-old offensive lineman who suffered heat stroke on May 29th and he died two weeks later. And following this, people were very quick to blame the death on, at the very least, neglectful practices used within the football program and athletic department at the University of Maryland. We saw head coach DJ Durkin placed on administrative leave. This while an investigation commissioned by the University and the Board of Regents took place. Also during that same time period, athletic director Damon Evans was allowed to stay in his position. Then after an August 10th report by ESPN found that Rick Court, who was the strength and conditioning coach was verbally and physically abusive to players,

he ended up resigning his position. Following this, most people expected Durkin and Evans to also lose their jobs. One of the first updates this week, on Tuesday morning, the Board of Regents came out and announced their decision regarding the report that was commissioned following McNair's death. They recommended that Durkin and Evans

would stay in their current positions. And instead what we saw was the governing board accepting the unexpected early retirement of Wallace D. Lowe, the school's president. And that reportedly set to happen in June at the end of the academic year. And as far as the board's reasoning for recommending that these two stay on, they said, The commission found no direct link between the administrative dysfunction in the athletics department and Jordan McNair's death. And the man speaking there is the head of the board of regents, James T. Brady. And there were some other interesting lines he included, like this one.

The Maryland football team did not have a toxic culture, but it did have a culture where problems festered because too many players feared speaking out. Which personally I found to be weird, because he's like, it wasn't toxic. But rather we'll use the word fester, which just makes you think of a disgusting infected open wound. Something becoming worse and worse because of neglect. Also regarding Durkin, it appears that Brady believes that he is one of the victims here. We believe that Coach Durkin has been unfairly blamed for the dysfunction in the athletic department.

And the board also recommended that... Coach Durkin remained head coach of the University of Maryland College Park football team. And instead, ultimately the board blamed Rick Court, the training staff, and a lack of leadership at a university level. Also saying Durkin and Evans deserve a chance to fix the athletic department. Another factor listed is that they're both relatively new in their position. Additionally, the school's president, Lowe, who I mentioned before, he ended up accepting legal and moral responsibility over McNair's death. And regarding Court, the commission's report really labeled him as the main problem here.

The report said that it found that he did things like challenging a player's manhood and hurling homophobic slurs, which Mr. Court denies but was recounted by many, and throwing food, weights, and on one occasion a trash can full of vomit. Also in addition to this, the Commission also found that the training staff failed to properly treat McNair's heat stroke, allegedly more than an hour elapsed between his symptoms of heat stroke and when 911 was called, and adding that standard treatments for heat stroke, like cold water immersion, were not used by training staff. And so in addition to Court resigning, two other training staff were put on leave. Also regarding leadership, the commission's report

seemingly found that there's no accountability, saying there was no formal mechanism to assess coaching performance, there was not a single performance review for Mr. Court during his tenure at Maryland, and the Athletics Department compliance office lacks a system to track complaints. And following all of these announcements,

as you'd expect, McNair's father wasn't too happy, saying, In addition to that, you also had Durkin releasing a statement around this recommendation, saying, But in addition to those statements, following this announcement, there were a lot of different reactions and also a lot of questions. You have people like Russian Baker III, the Prince George's County Executive where the school is located, questioning why seemingly the one person who was taking accountability was leaving, saying Lowe had done more to unite the university with the county in his eight years than his predecessors over the preceding decades,

then calling the decision very disappointing and adding it is a shame that they appear to have put the short-term interest of building the university's football program ahead of continuing the progress of Maryland's flagship university. Adding the one person that's leaving the university is the only person who stood up and took responsibility. He showed the moral courage that we want a leader to have. We also saw McNair's teammates criticizing the decision. You had fellow offensive lineman Ellis McKinney tweeting, every Saturday my teammates and I have to kneel before the memorial of our fallen teammate. Yet a group of people do not have the courage to hold anyone accountable for his death. If only they could have the courage that Jordan had. It's never the wrong time to do what's right.

Linebacker Trey Watson quoted the tweet and added, Accountability is something people apparently struggle too much with and yet it doesn't hurt them. But it comes right to us and led to the position we're in today. There also appeared to be more to the story with Lowe. One source told the Washington Post that Lowe was against the decision to keep Durkin and Evans on. Allegedly at a meeting with the board and quote, In the meeting he told the board that all hell would break loose. He told the board it would be a serious problem with the campus community and the public at large.

But they were bound and determined that Durkin come back. They basically put a gun to his head and threatened him saying if he wouldn't do it, they'd find a president who would. But with all of that said, that is not where the story ends. Following the backlash and the bad press for the board and Commission's recommendation to keep Durkin, he was fired. If he wouldn't do it, they'd find a president who would. But, with all of that said, that is not where the story ends. Following the backlash and the bad press for the board and commission's recommendation to keep Durkin, he was fired. President Lowe and the University of Maryland disregarded the recommendation and decided that Durkin had to go. And so after his first practice and day back, he was called into a meeting with Athletic Director Evans, and he was released from his position. And as far as why he was fired, it wasn't because he was found at fault, but because as Lowe put it, Durkin's departure is in the best interest of the university.

And I mean this was a pretty quick turnaround. I mean this change came less than 24 hours after university officials said that Durkin would be back on the sideline for Saturday's game against Michigan State. As far as what happens to Durkin, he was three years into a five-year contract and he will be paid out about 5.5 million dollars. And overall it does appear that people are happy about Lowe's decision. That said, now we have to wait to see what the board does. Allegedly they threatened to fire him immediately. And in the meantime, the University of Maryland will reportedly have an independent monitoring group making sure reforms are implemented, especially regarding oversight in the athletic department. And in addition to all of this, there's an investigation by the state's Attorney General that's still ongoing. And so we'll have to wait to see what comes from that as well.

That's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, I want to hear from you whether it be the last story, the first one, anything in between. Let me know in those comments down below. Also, while you're at it, if you like this video, give us one. If you're new here, you want more, subscribe. We post new videos every weekday, which actually, if you did miss the last Philip DeFranco show, you want to catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch that. Or if you want to watch this morning's bonus news video, click or tap right there to watch that. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been Phil'd in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.